This invention relates to a composite textured air entangled multi-filament yarn. It particularly relates to a textured composite yarn comprising at least two texturized feed yarns having at least two colors, wherein the composite yarn has alternating lengthwise sections exhibiting a major color difference from section to section in either the red, green or blue primary colors, as measured by spectral analysis of immediately adjacent lengths of the composite yarn. The invention further relates to a composite textured air entangled multi-filament yarn wherein the yarn is interlaced so that the multiple filaments are entangled with eacn other, and have entanglement points or nodes of interlaced filaments per meter of about five or more, measured along the composite yarn length.
A novel composite yarn is produced from two or more pre-colored or pigmented continuous filament textured multi-filament yarns. The novel composite yarn is distinguished in appearance by displaying to the observer a repeating color change along the length of the yarn. It demonstrates a more visually distinctive change of color over a greater composite yarn length than has heretofore been obtained in a composite air entangled multi-ply yarn assembled from a plurality of single continuously colored textured yarns.
Textured continuous filament manmade yarns can be single colored yarns or multi-color yarns. Multi-color textured continuous filament yarns are usually produced by either space-dyeing a single textured yarn by applying dyes of different colors along the length of the yarn, or by combining single color dyed or pigmented textured yarns by a conventional textile technique of air entangling, twisting or wrapping.
Air entangled composite yarns made by entangling separate, discreet, or individual textured color yarns are limited in their ability to significantly alter the color of the composite yarn over any meaningful length of the yarn product, as can be done by space-dyeing. Such air entangled yarns are characterized by relatively short lengthwise changes of color, as it has not heretofore been possible to change color for any significant length, from one or more of the constituent colors still present in the composite yarn. Therefore, the visual effect of existing multi-color air entangled yarns made from separate colored yarns has been to have all of the constituent colors more or less present or visible on the surface of the yarn over limited lengthwise distances of only a maximum of about two inches or so.
In this invention a composite textured entangled yarn is provided consisting of two or more pre-colored individual continuous filament feed yarns, where the overall color appearance of the resulting composite yarn changes its color in repeating cycles along its length by a large and easily detectable percentage in the red, green or blue part of the spectrum. The color change along the composite yarn is much more than has heretofore been produced with a blend of pre-colored textured continuous filament constituent yarns. The composite novel yarn of this invention more closely resembles traditional xe2x80x9cspace-dyedxe2x80x9d textured filament yarns where adjacent lengths of the finished yarn can exhibit longer and larger color changes, because the color changes are achieved by applying various dyes to the yarn at selected places along its length. But this invention avoids the expense and complications of the space-dyeing process.
This invention creates a composite yarn of more contrasting lengthwise color changes. According to this invention, at least two feed yarns are provided. They are made of pre-colored textured continuous filaments by alternately or selectively moving to the yarn surface one or more colored feed yarns, while burying another colored feed yarn, and periodically reversing these positions, as schematically shown in FIG. 1. This is done by:
(1) surfacing one feed yarn to the visible circumferential surface of the composite yarn while mostly submerging within the composite bundle the accompanying feed yarn having one or more contrasting colors;
(2) then reversing the process and surfacing the mostly submerged interior yarn to the visible circumferential surface while mostly submerging within the interior of the composite yarn the formerly visible exterior yarn, and continuing to alternate the surfacing and submerging reversals indefinitely. A heather-like transition zone of nearly equal amounts of each color is created in the resulting composite yarn as the yarns exchange places between submerged and surface locations inside or on the composite yarn product. Each transition zone tends to be a gradually changing blend of the two colors as they exchange interior and exterior places, switching from a more submerged position to a more visible position on the composite yarn circumference, or vice versa, as illustrated in FIG. 1, for example.